Joan, Countess of Flanders

Joan, Countess of Flanders (1200-5 December 1244) was Countess of Flanders and Hainaut from 1205 to 1244, succeeding Baldwin of Flanders and preceding Margaret II, Countess of Flanders.

Biography
Joan was born in 1200, the daughter of Baldwin of Flanders and Marie of Champagne. Her father died in the captivity of Emperor Kaloyan of Bulgaria in 1205, and she was raised in Paris under the tutelage of King Philip II of France. She married Infante Fernando of Portugal in 1212, but the two of them were imprisoned by Philip's son Prince Louis until they agreed to grant control of Flanders to Louis. Ferdinand then went to war with Philip, resulting in the disastrous Battle of Bouvines in 1214; Ferdinand was once more imprisoned. Joan faced the rivalry of her younger sister Margaret and a revolt of her domains led by a hermit claiming to be her father, and she had the hermit gruesomely executed after his revolt was crushed. She later remarried to Thomas of Savoy, and she died in an abbey near Lille in 1244.